Wild Discus Fighting

[ahyann]

Hi all, one of my discus is biting another very badly, they were not like this before, one keeps bullying the other and the smaller one got bite marks all over it's skin, whats happening? theres enough food and water condition is the same as before. Worried the smaller one might not get enough food or infection from the bite wounds. I have 2 discus in my tank. Pictures (w/o bite marks) below.

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[ccs]

Discus like other cichlid has a pecking order where there is one dominant fish.

[trident]

From my experience, discus seldom fight.
Maybe it's because there's only 2 of them in the tank.
And most likely they are of the same sex.
Same sex fight do happen. Best solution, put in 1 or 2 more.
They fare better in a small group.

[ahyann]

thanks guys for your advice. but funny thing is if they need to fight, why after some time together?

[trident]

upon reaching sexual maturity same sex fight occur to attract the opposite sex

[Toshika]

maybe they are fighting over an area as they can be territorial at times.maybe you can re-introduce the bigger fish into the tank after about 1 week.in this way he may not be as fierce since he thinks that not his "house". then during that time, you can feed the smaller one more.this method was taught to me by some veteran discus keeper.it works for mine though. a point to add is that they are fighting not because of food or water quality.as for the bite marks, leave it if its not bleeding. usually when they start to attact each other, the bite is not fatal, but its the stressing out of the fish by the biting that eventually kills the fish.anyway nice tank and fishes you got.

[ahyann]

thanks toshika i think i made a wrong move i took out the smaller one instead at the time i posted this thread. will try to re-introduce the smaller fish back and maybe take out the bigger one. Thanks again for your sound advice. Appreciate it.

[barmby]

Call the police ! Joke aside. Cichilds cannot be kept in pair unless they are "pair". Minimum keeep them in five or more. And you need to keep them in the same size to prevent stunt growth. this is especially important for juvenile fishes..